11/02/09

THE DAILY TEXANwww.dailytexanonline.comServing the University of Texas at Austin community since 1900Monday, November 2, 2009

SPORTS PAGE 12Pistol Pete outgunned 53

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TOMORROW’S WEATHERLIFE&ARTS PAGE 7Music Monday

with Brazos

By Audrey WhiteDaily Texan Staff

The population of Spanish-speaking Texans is rapidly in-creasing, but University social work experts say the number of social workers and mental health professionals who speak the language is insufficient to care for Hispanic populations in need of services.

“There is no available data to quantify it, but we know from our anecdotal reports and re-search studies that have been done over time that there re-ally aren’t enough social work providers in Texas or national-ly to meet the needs of Span-ish-speaking populations,” said Merrell Foote, the spokes-woman for the Hogg Founda-tion for Mental Health. “Our goal in this program is to in-crease the workforce out there and bring awareness to social work as a career.”

This semester, 22 students throughout the country re-ceived $386,000 worth of schol-arships from the foundation. Founded in 2008, the organiza-tion’s scholarship program pro-vides full-tuition scholarships to bilingual students seeking master’s degrees in social work at one of 11 schools in Texas ac-credited by the Council on So-cial Work Education.

To be eligible, students must pass a fluency exam and agree

to work in the social work or mental health field in Texas for at least the same length of time as their master’s program.

Since its inception, the pro-gram has provided scholar-ships for 51 students.

Although the foundation is based at UT, Foote said it is important to get students involved at all accredited schools so they will be pre-pared to meet diverse needs.

“Our mission is to improve the mental health of Texans across the state. There’s a lot of diversity across Texas, not just in language,” Foote said. “You have different needs in East Texas and West Texas or in the Valley region. We wanted to make sure we reached schools across Texas and didn’t just fo-cus on a certain region.”

Seven students have al-ready completed one-year master’s programs and began work in social services and mental health professions. Flor Avellaneda, who gradu-ated from the Baylor School of Social Work last spring, said social work and Spanish are her two passions. Avel-laneda was raised in a family of Mexican immigrants and sees firsthand the effects lan-guage and cultural barriers can have on individuals.

By Priscilla TotiyapungprasertDaily Texan Staff

Fifteen teams from 19 universities and eight countries presented their inventions and marketing strategies at the seventh annual Idea to Product Global Competition over the week-end at UT.

Judges announced the winners Sat-urday at the AT&T Executive Educa-tion and Conference Center, where top honors went to new antibacteri-al surfaces, improved medical kits for diabetics and special hand sanitizers in heart-shaped capsules.

The contest challenged students to create a product concept using innovative technology and also to come up with a marketing plan for the product. Luz-Cristal Glangchai, the program manager of the Idea to Product Program at UT, said sci-

ence and engineering research efforts sometimes miss the business aspect and that students need the ability to commercialize their ideas.

“Ideas are great, but they don’t have inherent value,” Glangchai said. “Okay, cool, you came up with something, but it’s nothing unless you can create an application for it to help society.”

This year, for the first time, the pro-gram divided the contest into three categories with separate themes: sustainability and clean energy, bio-medical technology and IT/wireless. Dave Bonner, competition judge and CEO of Stematix, Inc., said the cate-gories make the competition more fair so that one type of product is not favored to win.

The program invited teams from

By Jim PagelsDaily Texan Staff

Colleges are harder to get into than ever, and the competition for admission at most universi-ties is growing each year, right? Not according to recent reports.

While many Americans be-lieve that college admission rates have drastically dropped, data released last week from the Na-tional Association for College Admission Counseling shows that the acceptance rate at four-year colleges only declined from 71.3 percent in 2001 to 66.8 per-cent in 2007.

Stanford economist Caro-line M. Hoxby found that this misconception exists because a small number of colleges have become significantly more com-petitive in recent decades while about half of American universi-ties have actually become much less competitive.

“Students used to attend a lo-

cal college, regardless of their abilities and its characteris-tics,” Hoxby wrote in her report. “Now, their choices are driven far less by distance and far more by a college’s resources and stu-dent body.”

Hoxby found that this has caused some of the most elite universities to receive many more applications than in the past, while smaller, regional four-year colleges have seen sig-nificant drops.

“While a large percentage of our applicants used to come from Southern California, we’re now seeing more and more applica-tions from around the world,” said UCLA admissions spokes-woman Elizabeth Kivowitz Boa-tright-Simon.

Boatright-Simon said that this trend declined slightly last year due to the economy and rising costs of out-of-state tuition.

“I’m interested in doing inter-national business, and I’ve seen a lot of research that shows the University of South Carolina is the best,” said Coppell High

By Hudson LockettDaily Texan Staff

Bureaucratic hurdles have led UT administrators to shift federal stimulus funding from construction on campus to paying off gas bills.

UT Budget Director Mary Knight said the $9.9 mil-lion allocation of stimulus dollars to natural gas pay-ments awaits the approval of the Texas Higher Edu-cation Coordinating Board — expected sometime this month. The board oversees all public post-secondary institutions in Texas.

UT administrators said they planned to use the fed-eral stimulus money for construction of the new data center near UFCU Disch-Falk Field this summer but were unsure if new guidelines from the coordinating board would affect how the money could be used.

The coordinating board’s new Oct. 30 deadline for non-research funding pushed back the approval date for stimulus projects to two months after Sept. 1, when UT officials expected to have the funds.

UT Chief Financial Officer Kevin Hegarty said that putting the federal money toward salaries would cost too much because of the detailed accounting re-quired.

“I’m not sure it would be worth the monies you would get from the stimulus,” Hegarty said.

LANGUAGE continues on page 9

FUNDS continues on page 2

PRODUCT continues on page 6

STUDY continues on page 2

Sara Young | Daily Texan Staff

Mohammad Raza, right, discusses his team’s product, “Auto Count,” intended to track medical instruments during surgical procedures.

Study combats common misconceptions about university acceptances

UT officials unsure whether they can use federal money for original purpose

1A11

Contest promotes marketable ideas

New rules for fundsgenerateconfusion

Tamir Kalifa | Daily Texan Staff

Government senior Cecil Hynds and UT information technology services employee Paul Anderson share Tex-Mex food at El Chilito on Saturday.

College admissionrates stay steady,competition rises

State needs Spanish-speaking social workers

Anne-Marie Huff | Daily Texan Staff

Paul Barbara, principal investigator at the UT Energy Frontier Research Center, stands next to the X-Ray Photoelectron Spectrometer.

Rachel Taylor | Daily Texan Staff

Denise Baxindine, recipient of a scholarship from the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, sits in front of the School of Social Work.

Sympathy for the devil

TH

News Monday, November 2, 20092

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Gone with the wind

Tamir Kalifa | Daily Texan Staff

Adolfo Chavez IV plays with gravel outside of the Mexican American Cultural Center during their Day of the Dead festival.

funds: Stimulus guidelines require board approvalPushing paper

Contradictions in the coor-dinating board’s guidelines for stimulus proposals also led UT administrators to think the stim-ulus funds would not be ap-proved for construction pur-poses. And even as $55 million worth of stimulus dollars for re-search flowed into University coffers, federal tracking require-ments have burdened the office responsible for research projects with countless pages of new ad-ministrative work.

In a twist lawmakers may not have intended, the stimulus bill may create employment at UT just to deal with the paperwork involved. Susan Sedwick, the di-rector of the Office of Sponsored Projects, which is responsible for tracking federal dollars, said the office will likely have to create a

new position just to keep up with the new reporting requirements.

Texas lawmakers appropriated stimulus money for public univer-sities in the Legislature’s bi-annu-al budget last spring. The appro-priations required the schools to simply submit a spending budget for general stimulus funds to the governor’s office and legislative budget board in September. Ran-dy Wallace, associate vice chan-cellor, controller and chief busi-ness officer said the UT System did just that.

“We thought that was all the requirements that were going to be needed,” Wallace said.

But in late September, the gov-ernor’s office added a new lay-er to the approval process by as-signing the Higher Education Coordinating Board the task of tracking federal stimulus dol-lars across the state at universi-ties, community colleges and ac-

ademic health centers. The coordinating board’s dead-

line for the final proposals was Friday, two months after many UT institutions expected to have the money for spending projects. The board will approve proposed uses of stimulus funds sometime this month. Wallace said UT-Aus-tin, UT-Dallas, UT-San Antonio, UT-Southwestern Medical Center and the UT Health Science Cen-ters in Houston and San Antonio are all waiting on special funding for projects. At the UT School of Law, administrators had planned on paying for a $420,000 expan-sion of the law school clinic with stimulus funds that have yet to arrive, Knight said.

Confusing guidelinesThe board’s new guide-

lines were contradictory, caus-ing some confusion among UT budget planners about how the

money could be spent. On one page of the new guidelines, the board forbids the use of stimulus funds for modernization, reno-vation and repairs — and then allows them on another page of the same guidelines.

Mark Zafereo, the coordinat-ing board’s interim federal stimu-lus funding coordinator, said us-ing the money for modernization, renovation and repairs is allowed. The notification forbidding the use was an error, he said.

Of the $55 million in stimulus money for research, more than half is going to the College of Natural Sciences. This money is given on an individual basis by organizations including the Na-tional Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation and has strained the resources of the Office of Sponsored Proj-ects at UT.

The office is tasked with keep-ing track of the federal money and the number of jobs it cre-ates and retains. Sedwick said that keeping track of the new statistics would require addi-tional staff and information technology support.

Welcomed fundsFor those the money has al-

ready reached, the effects have been significant. Paul Barbara is the principal investigator at the UT Energy Frontier Research Center, which received $13 mil-lion in federal stimulus mon-

ey. The center will use the mon-ey to pay the salaries of about 30 graduate and postdoctoral stu-dents, as well as pay for the grad-uate students’ tuition and any re-search supplies.

Eighteen UT faculty will collab-orate on the project with the goal of understanding the molecular processes that influence the per-formance of new energy mate-rials, such as those seen in solar cells and batteries for all-electric vehicles. Barbara said the collabo-ration would have been impossi-ble without the grant, and that the real economic benefits will come years down the line.

“The inventions made 20 to 30 years ago are the ones that change everybody’s lives today,” Barbara said.

Pharmacy professor An-drea Gore said that a two-year $841,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health had revived one research program that had gone without funding for about a year. Gore said the timing of the grant for her research into the effects of environmental con-taminants on the reproductive and neurological development of multiple generations couldn’t have been better.

She said the dual purpose of economic stimulus and scientific discovery was welcome after the past eight years.

“As long as we’re careful-ly tracking [the money], I don’t think it’s an undue burden,” Gore said.

School senior Kevin Rutledge. “It’s not going to matter where I attend college, but if that’s the best school for my major, then that’s where I’ll go.”

The downturn in the econo-my has also had a direct effect on college admissions. Accord-ing to the 2009 State of College Admission report released last week from the National Asso-ciation for College Admission Counseling, colleges are admit-ting more students, expanding wait lists and increasing grant sizes to help recoup large loss-es in their endowments during the financial crisis.

Hoxby’s research, which was recently published in the Na-

tional Bureau of Economic Re-search, states that the number of high school graduates has in-creased by 131 percent from 50 years ago, while the number of college freshman has increased by 297 percent.

This data demonstrates that more and more colleges are ac-cepting high school students to-day who may not have been ad-mitted in previous years.

“The reason that initially se-lective colleges are much more selective today is not that they have failed to expand to absorb greater numbers of extremely high aptitude students,” Hox-by wrote. “In fact, they have ex-panded modestly, keeping up with the modest growth in the population of such students.”

study: Fewer schools get more applications, remain selective

From page 1

From page 1

CORRECTIONIn the October 7th article, “Big 12

could attract top prospects in men’s soccer,” UNC’s mascot, a Tar Heel, should be two words.

The Texan regrets the error.

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Karel Prinsloo | Associated Press

A Somali Kenyan woman laughs as she holds her baby in the settlement of Dela in northen Kenya near the Somali border on Oct. 22. The tradi-tional way of life for Kenya’s roughly 3 million nomads is rapidly giving way under the pressures of increasingly severe and frequent droughts, coupled with a rapidly rising population.

Drought alters life for KenyansBy Katharine HoureldThe Associated Press

DELA, Kenya — When 64-year-old Jimale Irobe was a young man, he guided his herds of cows and camels through knee-high grass.

These days the scrubby blades barely reach his ankles even in the rainy season, and there is nev-er enough grass to go around. The cattle cannot feed, and the nomad-ic families that depend on them for milk and meat cannot survive.

So Irobe scrapes out a living by selling charcoal made from burning the trees in the fields where his fa-ther’s herds once grazed.

“Now there are many people and the rains are not coming,” said Irobe, whose wisps of beard can’t conceal gaunt cheeks.

The traditional way of life for Kenya’s roughly three million no-mads is rapidly giving way under the pressures of increasingly severe and frequent droughts, coupled with a rapidly rising population. In one particularly drought-prone dis-trict in Kenya, up to a third of the

herdsmen have had to settle per-manently because they have lost so many animals.

As they gather in one place, they strip the nearby land of trees and grass to make houses. Their few re-maining animals consume the last blades of grass. Eventually, as has happened in the northern village of Dela, there is just a cluster of tired, hungry people in the sand waiting for aid.

Instead of their traditional grassy huts among thorn bushes and the spires of termite mounds, the no-mads live in makeshift settlements where the only shelter is domes of

twigs covered in scraps of cloth and plastic. Instead of roasting a goat by the campfire, more and more of them rely on handouts from foreign charities.

“Write my name down,” 70-year-old Halima Haroun implored an Associated Press journalist in the northern Kenyan town of Dela, thinking registration for aid was taking place. She pinched a with-ered arm to show how thin she is.

Arid northern Kenya has al-ways suffered cyclical droughts, but Dela residents say the dry spells are becoming longer and more frequent. A 2006 study by

Christian Aid in neighboring Man-dera district found that droughts had increased fourfold in the last 25 years. At the same time, the re-gion’s population has increased fivefold since the 1960s.

The report referred to the no-mads as “climate change canaries,” noting their existence in some of the world’s harshest and driest terrain makes them the group most imme-diately vulnerable to small fluctua-tions in temperature and rainfall. A third of pastoralists in the Mandera region had already lost their herds and had moved to settlements, the report said.

Tony Avelar | Associated Press

Students at Henry M. Gunn High School pose Saturday, displaying T-shirts created for a student-run support group ROCK (Reach Out. Care. Know.), to bring suicide awareness.

Anguish over teenagesuicides spurs action

By Lisa LeffThe Associated Press

PALO ALTO, Calif. — Grim news hit this university town in late October just two days before a PTA forum on teen-age stress: Another Palo Alto teen had died after stepping in front of a commuter train, the fourth such suicide in less than six months.

With hundreds of parents crowding the forum, school Su-perintendent Kevin Skelly told the anxious gathering that the latest death was “a cruel iro-ny” because city officials were working to prevent another tragedy. “We have all experi-enced situations where, despite every effort, results fall short of our hopes,” Skelly said.

Experts have struggled to understand what generates clusters of teen suicides, a phe-nomenon that breaks into a community’s awareness when they occur in a public place, as they did in Palo Alto. But offi-cials in this San Francisco pen-insula city of about 59,000 say they’re deploying a wide ar-ray of approaches to stop it from growing.

Those efforts are moving with greater urgency since the most recent suicide on Oct. 19 that involved a 16-year-old male student at Henry M. Gunn High School. Two oth-er Gunn students, a 17-year-old boy in May and a 17-year-old girl a month later, also took their own lives on the

train tracks. A 13-year-old girl died the same way in August, days before she was to become a Gunn freshman. At least one Gunn student, another 17-year-old boy, was prevent-ed from killing himself in June after his mother followed him to the tracks.

“There is no single answer. There is not necessarily a cu-mulative set of answers ei-ther,” said Greg Hermann, a spokesman for Palo Alto, which convened a task force of psychologists, clergy and others to prepare a response plan. “There are intelligent steps we can be taking.”

Police patrol the tracks while city officials negotiate with the railroad on a design to make them less accessible. Students are discouraged from erecting shrines at the sites, which might romanticize the deaths, and the media has been asked not to make public those locations.

Some of the high school’s 1,900 students also have cre-ated T-shirts with the message “Talk to Me” and formed pacts not to harm themselves. One student left bracelets made of heart-shaped walnut shells for others in need of cheering up to find. A group posts optimis-tic notes around campus.

Among other gestures to show support to students, teachers at Gunn have can-celed quizzes, given out their home phone numbers and held classes outdoors.

3 W/N

Monday, November 2, 2009 OPINION4THE DAILY TEXAN

Please recycle this copy of The Daily Texan by placing it in a recycling bin or back in the burnt-orange stand where you found it.

SUBMIT A FIRING LINEE-mail your Firing Lines to firingline@dailytex-

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RECYCLE!

By Emily GrubertDaily Texan Columnist

Editor in Chief: Jillian SheridanPhone: (512) 232-2212E-mail: [email protected] Editors: Jeremy Burchard David Muto Dan Treadway Lauren Winchester

HORNS UP, HORNS DOWN

LEGALESEOpinions expressed in The Daily Texan are

those of the editor or the writer of the article. They are not necessarily those of the UT admin-istration, the Board of Regents or the Texas Stu-dent Media Board of Operating Trustees.

The editorial board welcomes guest col-umns. Columns must be between 200 and 700 words. Send columns to [email protected]. The Texan reserves the right to edit all columns for clarity and liability.

SUBMIT A COLUMN

GALLERY

Health care for women

COUNTDOWN TO NOV. 3 AMENDMENT ELECTION

1day

By Roberto Cervantes Daily Texan Columnist

Whether you support a single payer system, a robust public option or no government intervention, I ask: What sense does it make that in a state with some of the world’s best medical and research facilities, the uninsured wom-en of Texas can only dream about re-ceiving preventive treatment or ma-ternity care from these institutions?

In Washington, as health care re-form makes its way through the much maligned congressional bureaucracy of bill-merging and conference com-mittees, the issues surrounding wom-en and health care must remain in the spotlight if we have any hope of real-izing actual reform.

After a summer of death panel dis-cussions and raucous town hall meet-ings, some of the nation’s most prom-inent women’s groups saw a notice-able absence in the issues impor-tant to women. Now they are ratch-eting up their involvement in the health care reform debate, attempting to defeat amendments in a final bill they say will continue the rampant gender discrimination in the health care industry.

The National Women’s Law Cen-ter, a Washington-based nonprofit, is leading the charge of this aggressive campaign to galvanize women across the nation and persuade legislators to include women’s health issues in any reform negotiations.

The center launched an online cam-paign earlier this month that focuses on stories of women being denied or losing health coverage for many of the same reasons, including insurers cit-ing pre-existing conditions.

The campaign, called “Being Wom-an is Not a Pre-Existing Condition,” argues the methods by which insurers classify many pre-existing conditions discriminate against women, making them pay higher premiums for less coverage than men receive.

In eight states and the District of Columbia, though not in Texas, health insurers can legally deny cov-erage to victims of domestic violence, which companies may consider a pre-existing condition.

Bluntly, insurers tell domestic vi-olence survivors, “You made a deci-sion to stay in an unhealthy, abusive relationship once, and we’re not go-ing to pay for you to make the same mistake again.”

Previous Cesarian sections and be-ing pregnant at the time they buy a policy also puts women in danger of losing or not having access to quali-ty health care. One woman featured on ABC World News Tonight testi-fied before Congress that, as her fam-

ily shopped for new health insur-ance, one insurer told her that she would have to be sterilized if she wanted coverage.

The reason for such an absurd and “morally repugnant” request, as Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland put it: She had a C-section previous-ly and the company wasn’t going to pay for another if she chose to have another child.

Further, insurance companies in 40 states and the District of Columbia are allowed to fix the price they charge women for coverage through a prac-tice called “gender ratings.”

The practice involves insurance companies predicting the cost of cov-erage for an applicant based on their gender, among other factors like age and health history. This oftentimes forces women to pay higher premi-ums than men for less coverage than men receive.

In states with this type of prac-tice, an estimated 4.7 million women bought health insurance under this pricing plan last year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

A poll released last month by NBC News and The Wall Street Journal found that 46 percent of women rank health care as one of their top-two concerns, while only 34 percent of men share the concern.

The 12-point difference has been a lightning rod in Washington, espe-cially for a handful of congresswom-en who have taken it as their respon-sibility to elevate women’s health is-sues to importance among their male colleagues.

“I don’t need maternity care,” Sen. Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican, said as the Senate Finance Committee vot-ed on an amendment covering mater-nity care. “So requiring that on my insurance policy is something that I don’t need and will make the policy more expensive.”

“I think your mom probably did,” Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan shot back.

As a nation, we can argue about the proper role of government in health care reform. Indeed, we have had these debates often when government expands. There is a healthy desire in the American psyche to not have the heavy hand of government determine our lives for us.

But decency and respect for the is-sues afflicting our fellow citizens also exist in the American psyche. These issues affect more than half of our national population and nearly half of our work force, and we should treat them as such. Allowing our de-bate to devolve into whether or not we are going to care how American women are treated is neither healthy nor American.

Cervantes is a government and journalism junior.

I was having a good wander around Austin the other night, hoping to get some advice from the si-lent city. It told me some things about hidden lakes and grassy paths and what skylines should look like at night.

It also told me that pedestrians shouldn’t merge , a warning I appreciated.

But the most dramatic point that Austin made dur-ing this nighttime conversation was about its people. I came across the stadium, where the cold darkness lent an electrifying drama to the backlit sign: Respect-ful Friendly Passionate. You know the one. Texas fans make us proud.

It’s a great sign, made better by its easygoing con-fidence. It’s not a question or an exhortation, but a statement: Texas fans make us proud. I love that.

I’ve been thinking a lot about competition lately, largely because of major budget cuts that my under-graduate university’s main rival is going through. Suddenly, the good-natured jokes about its inability to do whatever-it-is as well as we do fall flat, because it’s going through some rough times that are signif-icantly impacting its ability to remain the incredibly high quality school it is. Competition is way more fun when you respect and value your competitor. With-out a strong undercurrent of mutual respect, compe-tition sours and becomes something dangerous and a little scary.

It is for that reason that I’ve been worried about how the United States, wounded by a recession, is re-acting to the adversity. In particular, the rhetoric sur-rounding American relationships with China has frightened me, going a little too far into the realm of us-versus-them without starting from the baseline as-sumption that we’re all happy to see each other, and we’re definitely going to shake hands and grab some-thing to eat together when the game’s over.

Instead, phrasing has tended to assume that any-thing good that happens to China happens at the di-rect expense of Americans, and Americans should be wary of any entity labeled “China,” whether that en-tity is a person, a product or a company. It’s interest-ing to me that an American company participating in an international venture is referred to by name, while Chinese companies are often referred to as “the Chi-nese.” Images of “the Chinese” taking jobs and cars and food that rightfully belong to that guy down the street are disturbingly prevalent in conversations and the news.

I don’t think the pursuit of prosperity is a zero-sum game, and fortunately, Texas fans make us proud.

On Thursday, Austin’s Cielo Wind Power, the Unit-ed States Renewable Energy Group, and Shenyang’s Shenyang Power Group announced the first-ever util-ity scale joint venture wind power project between the United States and China, with 240 Chinese-made 2.5-megawatt wind turbines expected to be placed in West Texas over the next two years. It’s a $1.5 billion project, financed by China-based commercial banks, and Cielo is commenting that the American Recov-ery and Reinvestment Act (the bailout bill) is doing a lot for domestic energy and jobs by attracting invest-ment to wind projects.

It’s an interesting way to frame the project — clear-ly calculated to remind people that wherever the tur-bines are made, their placement is going to do a lot of good things for local economies and domestic energy supply. Which is exactly true.

Murmurs about the fact that manufacturing the tur-bines in the United States would have created more domestic jobs and fear that the American cleantech sector is far behind similar sectors in China and Eu-rope have, of course, been readily apparent. As long as these comments retain a sportsmanlike tone that calls on American manufacturers to rise to the chal-lenge posed by worthy competitors, I find them pro-ductive. The fact that a Sino-American joint venture wind farm is being pursued encourages me in think-ing that the competition is healthy for now, though the project is significantly smaller than the one that sparked rabidly protectionist talk a few years ago, when CNOOC (the Chinese national oil company) tried to buy Unocal for close to $20 billion.

My wariness about American protectionism found-ed on fear extends equally to China, where local con-tent requirements have made it very difficult for ex-porters to sell technology and manufactured goods to developers within China. I hope that a friendly, com-petitive relationship comes to exist, but parties from both countries are going to need to play fair and al-low themselves to be invested in even as they invest in one another.

Respect for the competitor coupled with a passion-ate desire to win makes the game much more enjoy-able for everyone. Texas fans, let’s hope that our lo-cal success at being respectful rather than distrustful, friendly rather than guarded, and passionate rather than spiteful extends throughout the world.

Now, let’s go manufacture some wind turbines.

Grubert is an energy and earth resources graduate student.

Some healthy competition

THE FIRING LINECut cruelty out of your diet

In response to Jordan Haeger’s Oct. 28 article, “Campaign mobilizes against animal abuse,” I would like to thank Haeger for reporting on the recent visit of peta2’s thought-provoking “Liberation” display to the UT campus. The exhibit aims to draw parallels between the abuses humans have inflicted on each other throughout history and the abuses we are currently inflicting on animals — some of which are taking place right here on campus.

Contrary to what one UT faculty member suggested in the article, the pain and suffering endured by the sensitive, intelligent animals who are tormented in UT’s laboratories is not alleviated by some paperwork being filled out by experimenters or the paltry regulations that exist. For example, in the laboratory of UT’s Eyal Seidemann, monkeys have had holes drilled into their skulls and portions of their craniums removed so that experimenters can monitor the monkeys’ brain activity when they perform different tasks while immobilized in a restraint device — all entirely permis-sible by law.

Thankfully, there are simple steps each of us can take to reduce the suffering of animals. For instance, every time we choose to buy products not tested on animals, we are taking a stand against ani-mal abuse. Similarly, by picking a veggie burger over a hamburger, we are sending the message that violence toward animals will not be tolerated. With so many delicious meatless options available today, including vegetarian barbecue riblets and vegan pizza, it’s never been easier to cut cruelty out of your diet for good.

For more information about animal rights and to view peta2’s “Liberation” display online, visit peta2.com.

— Ryan HulingSenior College Campaign Coordinator

peta2.com

Protesting layoffsThe Texas State Employees Union is organizing a peti-

tion to protest proposed layoffs in favor of new hires at the University. Along with the union, professors, teachers’ as-sistants, faculty and students from UT have worked to cir-culate the petition in hopes of sending a message to the UT Board of Regents and administration — that cutting cur-rent jobs to pay for new “prestigious faculty” in the midst of a flat budget is not the answer.

So far the petition, posted in various hallways and class-rooms, has more than a thousand names. The greatest sup-port seems to come from the College of Liberal Arts, spe-cifically in foreign language departments, where the lay-offs would probably be most severe.

While layoffs are a natural part of the job market, most faculty, staff and student frustration comes from the fact that, given the University’s relatively average finan-cial standing in a time when most institutions are suffer-ing much worse budget deficits, the possible firings don’t seem economically necessary. Most of the cuts would oc-cur at low-paying instructor levels in order to fund few-er new jobs. Fewer instructors would ultimately result in larger classes and less emphasis on quality education at the undergraduate level.

The Texas State Employees Union petition is a positive way to press the University administration into addressing the layoff situation more realistically. At a time when most universities have to cut jobs out of necessity, UT’s ability to simply tread water is an advantage. Perhaps when the administration sees the names of the thousands of people they are affecting with this decision, they’ll take that ad-vantage more seriously.

\

Right-wing gay panicGalling the right wing of her party, Sen. Kay Bailey

Hutchison has recommended two candidates for the posi-tion of U.S. attorney in San Antonio — one of them, Robert Pitman, is openly gay.

Lawyers recently rated Pitman, a respected U.S. magis-trate in Austin, the most competent judge in Travis Coun-ty. Matt Orwig, a U.S. attorney under President George W. Bush, told The Dallas Morning News that Pitman seemed to be “the most qualified and to have the most relevant ex-perience.” Pitman also teaches classes at UT and is a grad-uate of UT Law.

But social conservatives have begun to decry Hutchi-son’s recommendation with Tim Lambert, president of the Texas Home School Coalition, calling the senator’s move “very unusual and disturbing.”

It is unclear yet whether Hutchison was aware of Pit-man’s sexuality before submitting his name for recogni-tion. Nonetheless, we’re discouraged by a sector of the right wing in Texas that will continue to cleave to extreme social conservatism, even in a matter dealing with a can-didate’s sexuality, which in no way colors his competence for the position.

The Houston Chronicle suesCriticism has hounded Gov. Rick Perry since his deci-

sion last month to replace members of a board set to in-vestigate — and possibly cast doubt on — the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham, for whom Perry denied clem-ency in 2004 after Willingham was convicted of killing his three daughters in an arson attack.

But in the first instance of legitimate action taken against Perry following his possible involvement in a cover-up, the Houston Chronicle and Hearst Newspapers LLC are suing the governor in an attempt to force the release of an expert clemency report that made a case for Willingham’s innocence — and was handed to Perry 88 minutes before the state put Willingham to death.

We applaud the Chronicle and Hearst for not only push-ing Perry on his troubling involvement in this possible cov-er-up, which still awaits a formal investigation, but also for their dogged nod to investigative journalism, which has taken hits across the nation as newsrooms face tremen-dous financial losses.

We hope this effort forces Perry’s involvement in the matter back into the spotlight as the 2010 election season approaches, providing voters — especially those in the Re-publican primary — with broader coverage of the gover-nor’s history of underhanded ethical moves.

State&LocaLMonday, November 2, 2009 5

5 UNIV

for yearbook and graduation photos!IT’S TIME AGAIN

cactus yearbook’sfall portrait studiois november 2-13

monday-friday, 9-5pmHSM building, room 3.302

25th and whitis ave.

graduating seniors wanting cap and gown photos must make an appointment: 471-9190. CALL TODAY!

all other students can walk in for their class portrait.

APPLICATIONSare being accepted for the following student

position with Texas Student Media

Daily Texan Managing Editor, Spring 2010

Application forms and a list of qualifi cations

are available in the Offi ce of the Director, Texas Student Media, HSM, Room 3.304.

The TSM Board of Operating Trustees will interview applicants and appoint a

Managing Editor for Spring 2010 at 2:00 p.m. on November 20, 2009

College of Communications (CMA), LBJ Room #5.160

DEADLINENoon, Friday, November 6, 2009

Please return completed applications and all supporting materials to the Director’s Offi ce.

Interested applicants are invited to stop by and visit with the Director to discuss student positions.

By Jordan HaegerDaily Texan Staff

Barton Springs, which has re-mained closed due to recent flooding, may soon reopen, city officials say.

The creek flooded twice last week due to rainfall, carrying debris from Barton Creek into the pool, which can harm the population of endangered sala-manders that lives in the spring, said Paige Najvar, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist.

The salamanders occupy the area underneath the div-ing board in the pool. They crawl into cracks and fissures, where the water is too deep for swimmers to disturb them, Na-jvar said. They may also disap-pear into the aquifer beneath the springs, she said.

“Our primary concern when there’s flooding is the sediment that gets washed into the pool and can get into those cracks and fissures and make a poor habitat,” Najvar said.

The sediment could also get into the salamanders’ gills and prevent them from breathing, Najvar said.

Barton Springs will likely re-open sometime this week, bar-ring any more rain, said Tom Nelson, division manager of the City of Austin’s Parks and Rec-reation Department Aquatic Di-vision.

The city sends divers into the pool to flush the sediment out of the cracks, Najvar said.

Najvar said she doesn’t know if the salamanders are in immi-nent danger but that there is a potential for harm.

“They can go into the aquifer, but we just don’t know enough about the salamander to say it’s safe for them,” she said.

The Barton Springs salaman-der exists only in the four springs within Zilker Metropolitan Park. Researchers don’t know how many there are because they

are often underground, but in the last two months, researchers have counted 200 in the springs, Najvar said.

When the creek floods into the pool, the city closes the pool to assess the damage and clean it up, Nelson said.

There haven’t been many floods this year until the last few months, when the rainfall in-creased, he said.

When the pool has to close, it cuts down on revenue for the Parks and Recreation Depart-ment, said department spokes-man Victor Ovalle.

The pool is normally open to swimmers this time of year,

Ovalle said, but it does not get a large number of visitors.

“If it’s going to flood, this is the ideal time because we don’t have the high traffic we have during the summer.”

Ovalle said the cut in revenue will be offset because the pool had 50,000 more visitors this past summer than the year before.

The city plans to renovate Bar-ton Springs Pool in the future and repair the bypass drain that filters water from the springs. A plan and date have not been selected yet, Nelson said. The city has not selected a renova-tion plan or set a start date, Nel-son said.

Barton Springs’ flooding endangers salamanders

Michael Baldon | Daily Texan Staff

Shannon Slivinske of Bartlett Tree Experts pauses to survey the root system of a tree near the entrance to the Barton Springs Pool. Slavinkse and her coworker used air spades to expose the roots of trees without causing harm to them.

Austin youth enjoy a day of fun at Barton Springs. The springs closed recently after a flood, but the city may reopen them soon.

Jeffrey McWhorter Daily Texan file photo

City plans to reopen pool,send divers to clean uplocal rare species’ habitat

RECYCLE your copy of The Daily Texan

News Monday, November 2, 20096

Expect delays near Four Seasons

Lara Haase | Daily Texan Staff

Charles Milligan and J.P. Perez, N-Line Traffic Maintenance employees, fill barricades with water on Cesar Chavez Street near Brazos Street on Sunday. Underground construction to put in utility lines to the new Four Seasons Hotel building started Sunday.

New federal rules target file-sharing piracy at colleges

By Shabab SiddiquiDaily Texan Staff

New U.S. Department of Educa-tion regulations may affect a uni-versity’s approach to illegal file sharing, but UT students will not notice any changes to the Universi-ty’s already comprehensive policy.

The new rules, published last week in the Federal Register, re-quire higher education institutions to document plans to prevent ille-gal file sharing, educate students about copyright laws and provide students with legal alternatives to downloading. The requirements take effect in July 2010, and failure to comply would result in cuts of federal financial aid.

UT is making the necessary changes to comply with new fed-eral illegal file-sharing regulations, said William Green, director of net-working and telecommunications for the University’s Information Technology Services.

“The University has a number of measures in place,” Green said. “We have been aware of this legislation for some time and have been mak-ing the necessary changes to en-sure our compliance and have con-fidence in our current methods.”

Green said the University has a successful track record in combat-ing illegal file sharing. He said sta-tistics show UT student upload ra-

tios are less than those of average broadband users.

Some of the University’s estab-lished piracy prevention measures include required education pro-grams, bandwidth measuring tools and policies to deal with violations. He said the University plans to in-crease communication with students by including file-sharing information in letters sent to students’ homes.

Other universities are similarly prepared for the new rules. Pierce Cantrell, vice president and associ-ate provost for informational tech-nology at Texas A&M, said the pol-icies at that university already meet most of the new requirements.

“We may have to more formal-ly document all of the things that we’re doing, which is a new re-quirement,” Cantrell said. “But pretty much what we have in place meets all of those proposed parts of the new rules.”

The Department of Education‘s regulations only affect higher edu-cation institutions and not Internet service providers such as Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner.

“I think there is a lot of file shar-ing that goes on on commercial In-ternet providers. And I do feel that universities are unfairly targeted,” Cantrell said. “But I think the rules that have come out are ones we can live with.”

Construction on underground utilities on East Cesar Chavez Street near Trinity Street began on Sunday for additional development of the Four Seasons Hotel. There will be temporary lane clo-sures, with traffic allowed on the inner lanes.

Karla Villalon, a spokeswoman for the Aus-tin Transportation Department, said the depart-

ment expects construction to last two months.Traffic control signs will direct drivers during

the three phases of construction.The first phase will begin with the temporary

lane closures and will last 10 to 12 days. The sec-ond phase will begin the second week of No-vember during off-peak hours, including 9 a.m.

to 4 p.m., Villalon said.During the third phase, scheduled for the

third week of November, construction will be-gin on sidewalk improvements.

Villalon suggested drivers adjust for traffic delays during this time.

— Priscilla Totiyapungprasert

product: Diabetes emergency kit, sanitation technologies prosper in contestuniversities including UT, Texas A&M University, Penn State Uni-versity, COTEC Portugal, Univer-sidade Estadual de Ponta Grossa from Brazil and Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship from Sweden.

The team from Keio University in Japan erupted in cheers and fist pumps after a judge announced it was the winning team in their cat-

egory. The team had won a similar entrepreneurship contest in Japan for its invention of a hand sanitiz-er that comes in a capsule.

The capsule releases a hand sani-tizer that dyes the user’s hands red, with a dark tint indicating extreme-ly dirty hands. Users have to rub the sanitizer around for a full 15 sec-onds before the redness disappears, forcing them to sanitize their hands.

“People don’t really spend the

time to go to the bathroom and actually wash their hands, so we wanted to come up with a fun way to be sanitary,” said supporting team member Takumi Kawashima,

The Purdue University and Indi-ana University joint team won first place in their category and took home the overall award for Best Showcase. The team came up with the idea of an emergency kit that automatically mixes medication for diabetics.

Bonner said judging for the sus-tainability category was based on usefulness in the real market and whether current technology is suf-ficient enough to launch the prod-uct. A team made up of sever-al Brazilian universities won in that category for coming up with an antibacterial film that can be placed on ceramic tiles in places such as hospitals.

“I think self-sterilizing ceram-

ic tiles are a major innovation that would make an important contri-bution in the real world,” Bonner said. “They executed the idea very well and made the plan actionable so you could actually do it.”

The UT team, comprised of me-chanical engineering grad students Andrew Tilstra and Matt Saun-ders and UT alum Josh Mueller, presented an energy storage de-vice called an “ultracapacitor” that

would store more energy than cur-rent batteries.

After the global competition in the fall, the program holds a sim-ilar entrepreneurship competition in the spring for UT students only. More than 200 UT teams have en-tered the contest since the first competition in 2001, representing the colleges of engineering, natu-ral science, business, law and lib-eral arts.

From page 1

6 S/L

A RESOURCE OF THE ADF CENTER FOR ACADEMIC FREEDOM

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSpppppppppppppppppppppppppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaakkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooovvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeemmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnntttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt...............oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggggggggggggggg

Christian students at our public universities are being denied their right to openly express what they believe. The Constitution has something to say about this—and so should you.

EDUCATIONCOLLEGE STUDENTS DESERVE AN

NOT INDOCTRINATION

Life&Arts Editor: Leigh PattersonE-mail: [email protected]: (512) 232-2209www.dailytexanonline.com Life&Arts

The Daily Texan

7Monday, November 2, 2009

7 LIFE

By Kate ErgenbrightDaily Texan Staff

This weekend, authors and book lovers came together at the 14th Texas Book Festival, an event held annually on the grounds of the Texas Capitol.

The festival drew readers of all ages from across the state to celebrate a shared love of liter-ature. The Texas Book Festival promotes literature and litera-

cy, celebrates local authors and financially benefits state public libraries through a grant pro-gram. Each year, the festival in-cludes live music performanc-es, author discussion panels and presentations, local food and an endless supply of books to browse.

The area surrounding the Capitol building was trans-formed into a literary carnival complete with tents, balloons and, of course, funnel cake. In place of crafts and livestock,

By Audrey CampbellDaily Texan Staff

The soft, rhythmic click-clack of heels breaks the silence within the Austin Museum of Art as Andrea Mellard moves from one gallery to another, quietly discussing the concepts behind each work of art and how it has been placed with-in the space.

Mellard, assistant curator of the museum, spends many of her days writing grants for public programs, meeting with the public to promote the mu-seum, planning exhibits and visiting local artists at their studios, surveying inspiration for future shows.

“One of a curator’s jobs is to go and look at art,” Mellard said.

“Which I think is pretty nice.”Known for displaying primar-

ily modern and contemporary

art, the museum has become a fixture within local and nation-al art communities, incorporat-

ing works from private collec-tions, local artists and traveling exhibitions.

“We think about what fits our audience, what would people in Austin be excited to see,” she said. “We always want to bring some-thing fresh to the table.”

Mellard cited artist Chuck Close as one of her personal favorites, as she is always intrigued by the way the artist creates large-scale portraits of his friends and con-temporaries.

“I have always been so im-pressed and overwhelmed with the variety of ways he has ex-plored the human face,” she said. “He’s an artist whose work I’ve

Rocker shares latest fall tastes


Members of indie band Brazos, Paul Price, Martin Crane and Andy Beaudoin released their album Phosphorescent Blues earlier this month.

Band’s lead singer describes perfect day in Austin’s city limits

Texas literature enthusiasts read into Book Fest

By Alexa HartDaily Texan Staff

Eerie music blared from a bulky boom box rigged to a bike as hundreds of cycling enthusi-asts gathered under the flawless autumn sky Friday for Critical Mass.

Upwards of 200 cyclists, many clad in full Hallow-een regalia, converged on the West Mall for the month-ly cross-town bike trek de-signed to raise bicycle aware-ness and promote alternative transportation.

Unorganized and informal, the event, held on the last Friday of every month in cities across the globe, has no official leader and no set route. The only constants are the 5 p.m. meeting time, gath-ering on the stretch of sidewalk between the UT Tower and Gua-dalupe Street, and a passion for biking.

“We don’t really know where we’re going, someone just starts leading and everyone follows,” said undeclared freshman Han-nah Corder. “Its just slow, social riding, so it’s fun. It ends in a par-ty every time, but there’s a lot of stuff going on with Halloween, so it could end up at a number of places.”

There is no clear-cut pur-pose of the journey; everyone has their own reason for joining hundreds of other cyclists in a casual ride through the streets of Austin. Some partake in the ride simply to socialize and cel-ebrate biking. Others view it as a statement against “car cul-ture” and unfair treatment of cyclists.

“Really, it’s a protest,” said Austin resident Marky Rodden. “It’s to show Austin that there’s other ways to get around. It’s green, it’s healthy, its fun and bikes don’t take up as much parking space as a bunch of cars do. We’re getting noticed.

The groups are getting bigger and bigger.”

Despite the typically peace-ful intentions, the gathering caught bad press in September of 2001 after an irritated motor-ist ran over a Critical Mass bik-er. While most of the partici-pants feel that relations have improved since then, some mo-torists on Guadalupe Street seemed annoyed by the stall in traffic as the horde set out on its journey.

“Sometimes it can get a little

edgy with drivers,” said Calvin Coulbury, the 9-year-old, self-proclaimed “youngest rider” in Critical Mass. “But it really was only like that the last time I rode. It usually goes pretty smoothly.”

Many cyclists argue the re-spect needs to go both ways. It’s not uncommon for bikers to run stop signs and take up mul-tiple lanes, occasionally yelling at and provoking motorists with

Local trio Brazos is one of the gems of Austin’s flowering in-die music scene.

Released earlier this month, the band’s album Phosphores-cent Blues features frontman Martin Crane’s vocals gliding atop soaring acoustic instru-mentation. The result is a kind of sensible pop that is both buoyant and wistful. In this week’s edition of Music Mon-day, Crane shares a little about himself.

What album have you listened to the most in the last week?

MC: In the car: A rap album by the Orange Juice Clique called Crazy Red. Not in the car: Randy Travis’ Storms of Life and Animal Collective’s Spirit They’re Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished.

If you could collaborate with any musician in the world, who would it be?

MC: [Nigerian Afrobeat leg-end] Fela Kuti.

What was the best show you’ve ever played?

MC: I played a show on an overpass that was un-d e r c o n s t r u c t i o n o n c e . We made a fire in a steel barrel.

What was the worst show you’ve ever played?

MC: I try to block them from my memory.

What is your favorite song to play live?

MC: ELO’s “Mr. Blue Sky.” We played it with

an old band that I was in. That song slays.

When you were forming the band, were there any alternate band names you didn’t pick?

MC: No, not really.

Where is your favorite place to eat in Austin?

MC: Mi Victoria on Burnett or Swad up

north for Indian.

Do you have a day job? MC: Yes. I work in a

library.

What is your favorite Web site?

MC: Google image search.

What is a perfect day for you?

MC: Waking up and biking to

every Half Price Books in Aus-tin, taking breaks for swimming. I’d finish it by cooking with some friends and taking a trip to the abandoned air traffic control tower. This would be so much of an Austin day that I don’t think you could get any more Austin.

Costumed cyclists spin for grinsHundreds of bicyclists gather monthly to back alternate transportation

Curt Youngblood | Daily Texan Staff

Greg Foley, author of “Willoughby and the Lion”, reads his book to a group of children at the 2009 Texas Book Festival. The festival was held around the state capitol on Halloween weekend.

Lara Haase | Daily Texan Staff

A man calling himself “Halfbird Rustyfeathers” sits on a bench in the West Mall waiting for the Halloween-themed Critcal Mass ride to start Friday. Many Critical-Massers decided to celebrate the holiday by wearing a costume on their monthly downtown bike ride.

Curator knows a picture’s worth

ART continues on page 8

MASS continues on page 8

FESTIVAL continues on page 8

Printed word the main attraction at Capitol’s lively annual festival

Andrea Mellard,

assistant curator of

the Austin Museum of

Art, sits in the gallery of the museum on Thursday

afternoon. The museum currently features

an exhibit showcasing portraits by

photographer Chuck Close

coupled with the poetry of Bob Holman.

Jordy Wagoner Daily Texan Staff

1

2

3

45

6

7

8910

MUSIC MONDAYBy Brad Barry

‘‘We try to bring in a variety of media and

artists.”

— Andrea Mellard assistant curator

Life&Arts Monday, November 2, 20098

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art: Museum’s exhibits constructed for viewer interest

mass: Bikers roam open road in quest for lighthearted fun

really been excited about for a long time.”

The museum’s current exhi-bition of Close’s work will end Nov. 8. The traveling exhib-it shows the multiple ways in which the artist has used pho-tography to create his signature large-scale portraits. Various daguerreotypes, digital pic-ture prints and 8-foot high dig-ital tapestries hang throughout the museum, demonstrating the imposing power of photo-graphic narrative.

“The tapestries take about six months to make, and they have up to 250 colors woven in them, even though they look black and white,” Mellard ex-plained.

Though the museum has dis-played a large number of well-known artists, Mellard’s enthu-siasm for the work of local art-ists is clear. Mellard said she’s excited about the museum’s New Works program because it offers many opportunities for Austin artists, particularly art students, to showcase their work in a formal setting.

“I think visitors will be ex-cited to see what artists in their community are capable of doing,” she said. “There aren’t many opportunities for Austin artists to show their work locally, so we try to fa-cilitate that here.”

Mellard received a master’s degree in American Studies from UT and has held a num-ber of positions working with museums and the arts, in-

cluding work as a docent in the Harry Ransom Center and with the National Museum of Amer-ican History.

However, she emphasized that the majority of her work takes place behind c losed doors. She determines the pub-lic’s different interests and how

to best incorporate interactive learning within exhibits.

“We try to bring in a variety of media and artists with dif-ferent backgrounds, while also figuring out what is available to us,” Mellard said. “With some works we have to ask, ‘Can it fit inside the door ’ or

‘Can it be on view in front of visitors for a long time?’”

Mellard works closely with Michaela Black, the museum’s associate director of education, and the two make sure to al-ways find a professional means of incorporating learning with-in the museum. Mellard said

about 10,000 school children visit the museum each year.

“Because we’re a smaller museum, we don’t have a lot of rules and regulations, which means we can be more flexible with teachers and field trips,” Black said. “There’s never a dull moment here.”

most vendors sold books, the most impressive display be-longing to Penguin Group.

“It’s like an orphanage. You want each book to go to the right family,” said Howard Wall, the director of national field marketing for Penguin Group, about the company’s collection of merchandise.

The Texas Book Festival also gave readers the opportunity to learn about and purchase from smaller local publishing hous-es they may have never been ex-posed to, such as Shearer Pub-lishing and Maverick Publishing Company.

In the display tents, nonprof-its involved with issues of lit-eracy or writing promoted and raised awareness about their organizations.

The Cooking Tent, sponsored by Central Market, presented culinary masters such as chef Rebecca Rather, author of “Pas-try Queen Parties: Entertain-ing Friends and Family, Texas Style,” and Ellie Krieger, star of Food Network’s “Healthy Ap-petite.” The chefs talked about their books and demonstrat-ed their cooking techniques in a portable kitchen underneath the tent.

Italian chef Lidia Matticchio Bastianich entertained her packed crowd with stories about cooking for the Pope.

“I just took the Pope’s hand and cut the cake,” said the chef to the delight of her audience.

In the Music Tent, the eccen-tric Kinky Friedman drew a large crowd, while other musical guests included La Guerrilla and Patricia Vonne.

From page 7

whom they share the road.“With Critical Mass, there’s

usually a few bad apples that are kind of hostile,” said chem-istry sophomore Derrick Pitts. “I would say most people around here are really respect-ful. Though there are some con-flicts with motorists — moreso when we run through red lights and stuff like that.”

Although motivation to ride in Critical Mass differs from rid-er to rider, the common theme Friday was lighthearted fun. In the spirit of Halloween, a zom-bie puffed on a cigarette while mingling with a fairy before de-

parting. Costumes ranged from gory to gender-bending, dain-ty to dark. A man dressed as if he came straight from George Washington’s army gave an en-thusiastic rallying speech met with cries of approval from the steps of the Union before mounting his 5-foot-tall bicycle and leading the way south.

“I don’t think people should take it too seriously,” Pitts said, smiling in his cowboy costume before climbing aboard his bike, appropriately disguised as a horse. “For me, it’s just about hav-ing fun. Very rarely do you get to ride your bike with 150 other people on the road, and nothing can really replace that feeling.”

Khabele School students Emma Warren and Avalon Hancock talk with Andrea Mellerd at the Austin Museum of Art on Thursday as she shows them part of an interactive exhibit.

Jordy Wagoner Daily Texan Staff

From page 7

Festival: Musicians, chefs join authors to encourage reading

From page 7

NewsMonday, November 2, 2009 9

By Priscilla PelliDaily Texan Staff

Smiles, colorful bicycles and costumes were some of the many things surrounding the “Roll Be-yond Coal” rally in front of City Hall on Saturday afternoon.

The Sierra Club Lone Star Chapter hosted the rally to en-courage Austin Energy to stop using coal and invest in other en-ergy sources such as solar and wind alternatives.

Rally participants asked the En-vironmental Protection Agency to take firmer action on the Tex-as Commission on Environmental Quality to stop granting new coal power plant proposals throughout the state or face legal consequenc-es. The agency claims the environ-mental commission does not ad-here to the Clean Air Act because it grants coal plant proposals that exceed minimum emission levels.

Representatives with the envi-ronmental commission referred all calls to attorneys. Any other calls made went to voice mail.

Eva Hernandez, spokeswom-an for the Lone Star Chapter, said the organization rallied to ask the EPA to halt the giving of permits for the construction of any new coal plants in Texas until the en-vironmental commission agrees to adhere to the Clean Air Act.

“Right now, we are in the midst of the second big coal rush in Texas,” Hernandez said. “There are 12 new coal plants that are proposed across the state, more than any other state in the coun-try, which is huge when you see [Texas] is number one in mercury emissions and carbon emissions. It’s important how it impacts our quality of life overall.”

Hernandez said another reason for hosting the event was to raise

awareness for the issue affecting Texas citizens.

“It’s pretty clear on how we rank on emissions with the smog forming,” Hernandez said. “When you look at all the cumu-lative effects from coal, you can notice they are seriously causing health problems within our state. We have an incredible opportuni-ty for Austin to be a leader by in-vesting in solar and wind alterna-tive energy sources.”

City Councilman Chris Riley said he’s optimistic about Aus-tin progressing towards a new era in the way that Austinites utilize energy.

“[City Council] is trying to pro-mote healthier choices as individ-uals for the environment,” Riley said. “We need to take a step back and see how we drive our pow-er and the ways we move around. I’m very optimistic that this will be a progressive couple of years.”

According to studies conducted by the Sierra Club, Fayette Power Project in Austin releases around 5 million tons of carbon diox-ide emissions per year. The plant emits 2,060 tons of nitrogen oxide in addition to 14,834 tons of sulfur dioxide per year.

Other rally participants in-cluded State Representative Ed-die Rodriguez, Physicians for So-cial Responsibility and Universi-ty organizations including ReEn-ergize Texas and the Sierra Club student chapter.

“This is an issue important to our youth and especially our Uni-versity students,” said Brittany McAllister, a member of the Sier-ra Club student chapter. “We ask City Council to encourage the move beyond [Texas’s] coal de-pendency and make our future a clean one.”

From page 1

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By Hannah JonesDaily Texan Staff

Olympic swimmer and Texas Ex Garrett Weber-Gale was the key-note speaker at a dinner Thursday night to recognize the Lee Bagan Endowment, a fund for economi-cally disadvantaged students fac-ing cognitive disabilities.

Bagan, a 2007 UT graduate, is the former director of Student Government’s Services for Stu-dents with Disabilities Agen-cy. During his time as director, he established a fund to pro-vide diagnostic testing for stu-dents who struggled financial-ly. Bagan began raising money for the fund by collecting dona-tions in a cup on the Drag. He eventually recruited help from

fraternities and other organiza-tions on campus.

Last year, the endowment was created along with a constitution and a committee to formalize the process of determining who will receive the scholarships, said Liam O’Rourke, Student Government president and co-founder of the endowment. Two students have received scholarships for testing.

“Lee and I had envisioned not just the creation of the endow-ment, but to have an annual cel-ebration dinner as well,” said O’Rourke. “It is not enough for the scholarship. We want to raise awareness.”

Bagan now works for the U.S. military as a civilian intelli-gence specialist in Iraq. He sent

a speech via e-mail to his broth-er Scott Bagan, a senior commu-nication studies major who read it during the dinner.

“Our parents have always championed philanthropy and have always stressed the im-portance of helping others who can’t help themselves,” said Scott Bagan. “Lee has really taken it to a different level. Once he has his sights on something, it’s going to be done 10 out of 10 times.”

Weber-Gale, who was diag-nosed with high blood pressure and a learning disability, spoke about his experiences dealing with disabilities on the Olympic team and starting his own business.

Weber-Gale said he learned from UT head swim coach and

U.S. men’s Olympic coach Ed-die Reese the importance of hard work and sacrifice. Reese also in-stilled in Weber-Gale that the main rule in life is to support and take care of one another.

Weber-Gale said that his high-risk high blood pressure could have had an effect on his swim-ming career had he not handled it properly. Learning about nutri-tion and cooking, however, has changed his lifestyle, and he now wants to help people live a better life through better nutrition.

“[People] should not have a stigma against disability. Ev-eryone has to find their own way,” he said. “One has to be willing to do way more than what is necessary.”

Maddie Crum | Daily Texan Staff

Garrett Weber-Gale, an Olympic swimmer and Texas Ex, discusses the struggles of being an athlete with dangerously high blood pressure and promotes his new line of low sodium products after speaking on behalf of Students with Disabilities.

Olympian speaks on disabilities

Curt Youngblood | Daily Texan Staff

A group of people gather on the steps of City Hall at the Roll Beyond Coal Bike Ride and Rally. The rally was held in attempt to get the city of Austin to cut ties with the Fayette Power Plant.

Organization urges energy alternatives, rallies against coal

“There is such a need in our community,” she said. “I have a very strong passion for serving the poor. Seeing poverty and see-ing children is a driving force. I don’t think, ‘It’s happening, that’s too bad.’ I think, ‘It’s happening. Let’s seek justice and empower the population.’”

Avellaneda is now working in the Waco area with an organization that provides counseling for children,

increases community outreach and brings resources to schools.

This summer, Gov. Rick Perry signed House Bill 233, which in-creases the standards for trans-lators in hospitals to prevent er-rors. Despite such efforts, David Springer, the associate dean of ac-ademic affairs at UT’s School of Social Work, said the gap between the number of Spanish speak-ers who need social services and the work force available to serve them is increasing.

“With the Hispanic popula-tion growing as rapidly as it is, we’re going to have to find cre-ative ways to respond to the se-rious mental health workforce shortage, particularly with re-gard to bilingual providers,” Springer said.

Programs like the Hogg Foun-dation scholarship are making it possible for interested students to pursue careers in social work that will serve Texas’ neediest popula-tions. Denise Baxindine, a UT so-

cial work graduate student who received a Hogg scholarship, said her undergraduate work with jus-tice issues led her to become flu-ent in Spanish and considers it one of the most important aca-demic decisions she has made.

“For me, being bilingual isn’t just speaking two languages,” Baxindine said. “It’s ensuring that everyone has access to the re-sources and information neces-sary to live safely and successful-ly in our society.”

language: Programs attract bilingual social work students

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SportS Monday, November 2, 200911

Swimmers dominate at meets


Ricky Berens competes at the Texas Swimming Center over the weekend. Berens and his teammates defeated Indiana 179-149, while the women’s teams topped Michigan, 235-149, and Indiana, 222-162.

This weekend, the men’s swim-ming and diving team claimed its second win of the season when it topped Indiana 179-149.

Friday, the Longhorns took 13 of 17 events and clinched the du-al-meet victory with a command-ing lead of 170-140. Texas opened the meet with a victory in the 200-yard medley relay, which junior Scott Spann and seniors Hill Taylor, Ricky Berens and Ben Van Roekel finished in 1:29.97.

The team continued to dominate as Texas swept the 100-yard breast-

stroke, capturing the top four spots. Texas’ Drew Livingston edged

teammate junior Matt Cooper for first in the 3-meter diving event with 402.60 points; Cooper finished with 402.15 points.

Saturday, the Longhorns finished off the team win in impressive fash-ion. Cooper won the platform div-ing event, adding nine points to the final score. He beat out the compe-tition by more than 100 points.

The men’s season will resume Dec. 3 when UT hosts the opening session of the Texas Invitational.

Meanwhile, the women’s team took on Indiana and Michigan in a dual meet this weekend and defeat-ed both the Hoosiers, 222-162, and the Wolverines, 235-149.

Saturday’s highlights include a victory in the 400-yard freestyle re-lay, with Texas’ Bethany Adams, Brie Powers, Kathleen Hersey and Katie Riefenstahl finishing in an NCAA provisional-qualifying time of 3:22.96.

The women return to action when they host Texas A&M on Nov. 6.

— Tara Dreyer

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forcing four interceptions and five total turnovers from an explosive Cowboys offense. Coming into the game, OSU quarterback Zac Robinson had thrown only three interceptions all year but finished 15-of-28 with only 143 yards and four picks Saturday. Texas kept the running game in check, too. Okla-homa State got 134 yards rushing, but needed 43 carries, only a 3.1 per-carry average.

“Tonight was about execut-

ing against a good offense,” said Texas safety Blake Gideon, who also had an interception. “If nothing else, we were going to stop the run.”

The Longhorns’ defensive dominance left both offenses frustrated. Thanks to two de-fensive scores, a muffed punt and a slew of short fields after turnovers, Texas ran only 56 of-fensive plays all night. McCoy had a season-low 21 passing at-tempts, completing 16 for 171 yards and a touchdown. For the

first game all season, he didn’t throw an interception.

“It’s hard to play great offense when you don’t have the ball be-cause you’re scoring on offense all the time,” Brown said. “Colt got mad at the defense once, ‘Don’t score, fall down, give us the ball every now and then.’ That was fun for them.”

It was a lot more fun than even the Longhorns expected.

“We were prepared for a fight to-day,” McCoy said. “And it was. We just played really well as a team.”

performance to replace his missed tackle on Crabtree’s touchdown as the defining moment of his career.

His second-quarter pick went 77 yards for the score to give Tex-as a 17-0 lead and was the first of his career.

It also fulfilled Thomas’ pre-game prediction that Brown would have an interception for a score. And Thomas knows a thing or two about pick-sixes.

“We were talking about it in the hotel this morning,” Curtis Brown said. “When I saw [the ball], I said, ‘I gotta go.’”

Along with Brown, Thomas took a lot of blame for the Crab-tree catch after he pulled off his

coverage when he was supposed to provide support over the top. Saturday, he continued to make his case that he’s one of the top defensive backs in the nation.

The sophomore’s 31-yard inter-ception was his sixth of the year and second for a touchdown this season. He has as many picks as the Longhorns had as a team in all of 2008.

“We try to put it in the end zone as much as possible,” Thom-as said.

Thomas shifted over to nickel back after starter Aaron Williams left the game with a knee injury on OSU’s first drive after, coinci-dentally, colliding with Thomas.

Of all the miscues from the Tech loss, none was bigger than

Gideon’s. Dropping an easy in-terception that would have like-ly sealed the game for Texas brought much criticism for the then-freshman. Against Oklaho-ma State, Gideon proved that he’s shaken off his case of the butter-fingers with his fourth intercep-tion of the year.

The players were quick to point out that the reason they’ve been able to improve has been their ability to put last year behind them a long time ago.

“We put that to rest before the season,” Gideon said. “If we would have let last year carry into this season, I think it would have been a long year for us.”

What a difference a year makes.

defense and special teams.“Our defense is continuing to

score, and we didn’t score on spe-cial teams tonight, but we usu-ally do,” said Texas coach Mack Brown. “Scoring in all three phas-es is something that gives you a chance to be really, really good, and we’ve just got to keep that hammer down and keep pressing in those areas.”

Some new wrinkles on offense help the team, with Malcolm Wil-liams emerging as a deep threat down the field. The offense also has the luxury of speed threats Marquise Goodwin and D.J. Monroe, something it hasn’t had before. In the last two games, Tex-

as has scored 82 points. “It took a while for everything

to come together, but it’s clicking now,” McCoy said.

The secondary, a weakness for the team last year, has turned into what could be its biggest strength. If you throw on this secondary, chances are pretty good that they will not only pick it off, but also return it for a touchdown. Earl Thomas has six interceptions, two returned for touchdowns. When Aaron Williams left the game with a knee injury on Saturday, Chykie Brown and Curtis Brown both stepped up at corner, each recording interceptions.

“We just try to put it in the end zone as much as possible and create turnovers,” Thomas said.

“Our goal is three a game, and it’s just falling our way.”

Something is different about this team now compared to the beginning of the season. Senior Sergio Kindle had the team wear dog tags this week for motivation to play with a swagger.

Right now, the team is play-ing with the swagger of a cham-pion. A year ago, the team was at its lowest point following a loss to Texas Tech. Now, the Horns are at the other end of the spectrum, and it seems like nothing or no one is getting in the way.

“We have a chance to be real-ly good here at the end,” Brown said. “We want to be the best team in the country.”

From page 12

football: McCoy threw season-low passesSwagger: Win shows how far this team has comeFrom page 12

From page 12

Secondary: Defensive backs close book on last year

Sports Editor: Austin TalbertE-mail: [email protected]: (512) 232-2210www.dailytexanonline.comSportS

The Daily Texan

12Monday, November 2, 2009

STILLWATER, Okla. — It was almost the same scenario as last year for Texas: the last hurdle of the season against a highly ranked team on the road, at night, in a hostile en-vironment. It was a chance to make a statement to America.

The Longhorns did just that Saturday night.

The team displayed a cham-pionship-caliber defense, pick-ing off quarterback Zac Robin-son four times, two of which were returned for touchdowns. Colt McCoy looked like a Heis-man-winner — a completely different quarterback than the one that played against Texas Tech and Oklahoma.

It was total domination, and the win likely books Texas a

spot in the National Champi-onship game.

This Oklahoma State team isn’t the same without Ken-dall Hunter and Dez Bryant, and showed it on the field Sat-urday night. But the win over Oklahoma is still probably Texas’ most significant win.

The win in a similar situa-

tion where Texas faltered last year shows just how far this team has come. People won-dered where the 2008 team was at the beginning of the season. That team is gone, and the 2009 team is probably bet-ter all-around with improved

12 SPTS

By Michael SherfieldDaily Texan Staff

STILLWATER, Okla. — The Texas Longhorns entered Boone Pickens Sta-dium on Saturday night with a ques-tion looming over their heads. Four hours later, they left for Austin with a resounding answer.

They needed no comebacks this time, no dramatic field goals or last-minute stands.

Instead, No. 2 Texas (8-0, 5-0 Big 12) demolished No. 18 Oklahoma State 41-14 in front of 58,516 silenced fans, pro-viding the signature win to a so-far perfect season.

It wasn’t supposed to be this easy for Texas in a year in which they have struggled to meet lofty expectations. But facing their biggest challenge of the season on the road — almost exactly a year after losing to Texas Tech in simi-lar circumstances — the Longhorns put on a show for a national audience.

“We want to be the best team in the country,” said Texas head coach Mack Brown. “We want to play with a swagger.”

That emotion was captured and print-ed for the whole team to experience. Every player wore a dog tag that read “Texas Swagger,” an idea proposed by defensive end Sergio Kindle to show the team’s confidence in itself, even when those on the outside doubted them.

“We don’t really listen to anyone outside this locker room,” said defen-sive end Sam Acho. “We know what we’re capable of. We definitely played with some swagger tonight.”

The wild shoot-out that was expect-ed of the Longhorns and Cowboys nev-er materialized, not even close. Texas jumped out to a 17-0 lead in the second quarter, using a methodical offensive attack and explosive defense.

Cody Johnson scored the first touch-down of the game on a 1-yard run, and on the Cowboys’ ensuing possession,

Texas cornerback Curtis Brown jumped a short pass on third-and-two and re-turned it 77 yards for a score. The Cow-boys rallied, driving for a 1-yard touch-down run of their own, but whatever thoughts they had of a comeback were quickly dismantled.

On the field for only their fourth of-fensive possession of the half, the Long-

horns made it count. Colt McCoy drove his side 80 yards in 10 plays, finding Mal-colm Williams in the back of the end zone for a diving catch with nine seconds left in the half for a 24-7 lead at the break.

“That changed the momentum back in our favor after they took it, and that was about the only time I thought they took it all night,” Brown said. “Then

for us to come out and score points im-mediately to start the third quarter. The game was really over at that point.”

Texas broke away for good just six minutes into the second stanza. After the offense kicked a field goal to boost the lead to 27-7, Earl Thomas struck with his sixth interception of the year. The sophomore safety broke on an un-

derneath route and returned the ball 31 yards for a backbreaking touchdown, Texas’ ninth non-offensive touchdown this year.

“We wanted to put our foot on their throats,” Thomas said.

The Texas defense did just that,

By Blake HurtikDaily Texan Staff

STILLWATER , Okla. — A year ago, Texas’ defensive backs were under fire on and off the field.

The Longhorn secondary was torched by Texas Tech’s high-pow-ered offense on Halloween week-end in 2008. It took much of the blame for Texas’ 38-33 loss, which was defined by Michael Crab-tree’s heartbreaking last-second touchdown grab. It was a mark the secondary would wear for the rest of the season and into 2009.

But after Texas’ 41-14 trounc-ing of Oklahoma State on Hallow-een night Saturday, consider those 2008 demons exorcised. The three defensive backs who struggled the most against the Red Raid-ers last year — cornerback Curtis Brown and safeties Earl Thomas and Blake Gideon — led the way.

Each had an interception as the

Longhorns picked off OSU quar-terback Zac Robinson a total of four times. Brown and Thomas took their interceptions back for touchdowns.

“I thought it was very fitting to-night for all three of them to inter-cept balls,” said Texas coach Mack Brown, “to put that little thought to rest.”

Even though the secondary has been playing at a high level all season, the win on the anniver-sary of the Tech loss served as an emphatic statement that this sea-son’s defense has grown by leaps and bounds.

For Curtis Brown, it was a

By Chris TavarezDaily Texan Staff

On the eve of All Hallow’s Eve, No. 2 Texas (18-0, 13-0 Big 12) spooked No. 8 Nebraska (16-6, 9-4) by sweeping them in three straight sets and send-ing them back to Lincoln, Neb., without any treats.

Instead, the Cornhuskers were tricked into thinking they could come into Gregory Gym-nasium and leave with a win. Nebraska would come out to early leads in all three sets only to see the Longhorns surge back for the win — especially in the third set, when Texas fell behind big early on.

“We could have given up [when we were] down 10-4 in game three, but we kept bat-tling, kept battling and had some big plays in that 18-point range to really change mo-

mentum and get the crowd behind us,” said Texas coach Jerritt Elliott.

After Texas tied the set at 13, Nebraska went on a 5-2 run to regain the lead at 18-15. Then, riding the encouragement of an unusually vocal Elliott, Tex-as rallied with a 10-1 run to win the set 25-19.

“I was trying to interject some energy to them, try-ing to be able to create a lit-tle bit of synergy and enthu-siasm for them,” Elliott said. “If I have to be a cheerlead-er at times, then I’ll do that to kind of push them to get go-ing. I don’t know if that was the key, but I was just trying to help out.”

Elliott’s encouragement from the sidelines may not have been pivotal, but the play of All-American outside

hitter Destinee Hooker cer-tainly was. Hooker played at a higher level the entire match and posted her sixth double-double of the season.

“I thought Destinee was re-ally good … in all the games; she just loves being in that sit-uation,” Elliott said. “She’s a winner, she knows how to win. She just loves perform-ing at that kind of level to be successful. She wants the ball when it’s crunch time.”

And in the crunch, the se-nior seemed to single-handed-ly carry the team to victory.

“I was thinking, ‘We’re not going to lose this game. We’re not,’” Hooker said. “We’ve worked too hard in the prac-tice gym, and this whole sea-son, to let up now.”

During that 10-1 run, Hook-er posted six of her 19 kills, in-

cluding all three of Texas’ fi-nal points.

“I got the eye contact from [Ashley Engle], got a good pass from [Heather] Kisner, and ter-minated the ball,” Hooker said of her final blow to Nebraska’s hopes of pulling the upset.

On hand to watch Texas’ sweep were King Leonidas, Pocahontas, a random penguin and an assortment of others.

But despite those figures and the more than 4,000 oth-ers in the stands, all the focus was on the history that Tex-as made at Gregory Gymnasi-um on Friday night. The Long-horns’ sweep of the Cornhusk-ers marked only the fourth time in seven years that Ne-braska failed to win a set. It also was the Longhorns’ 27th-straight regular season win, an all-time record.

fooTBall ColuMn

Longhorns score on offense, defense to win in Stillwater against overmatched ‘Pokes

Photos by Bruno Morlan | Daily Texan Staff

Above, Texas running back Cody Johnson tries to split two Cowboy defenders. Johnson led the longhorns in rushing with a 3.4-yard average. Below left, tackle lamarr Houston collides with oklahoma State’s Russell okung at the line of scrimmage; Houston and the rest of the Texas defensive line helped hold the Cowboys to 134 yards on the ground, their second-lowest total of the season. Below right, Chykie Brown intercepts a ball thrown by Zac Robison.

oklaHoMa STaTE 14TExaS 41

Thomas and Co. squelch Cowboys’ passing offense to avoid a repeat of 2008

Secondary silences critics with 4 picksProving just how good they are

No. 2 Texas blanks the seldom-swept Huskers behind Hooker’s 19 killsvollEyBall

Rachel Taylor | Daily Texan Staff

Texas’ Bailey Webster and Rachel adams elevate above the net to block a nebraska ball. The Horns’ defense had 14 total blocks.

By David R. Henry

Daily Texan Columnist

FOOTBALL continues on page 11

SWAGGER continues on page 11 SECONDARY continues on page 11

on THE WEB: Soccer coverage @ dailytexanonline.com

In dominant win, Texas shows its ‘swagger’

11/02/09

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